Six Random Guys Thrown Together For A Job

I returned from Vietnam on May 4, 1971 and got married to the girl I had proposed to before I had left for Vietnam on May 23rd. we had an all too short honeymoon and I flew (alone) to Munich, Germany the last week of June. She joined me several weeks later.

After going through the usual in-processing that every military person goes through when they arrive at a new station, I was shown to the office I would be working out of as a counter-intelligence agent. (For those who may not know what that means, it means that my job and the job of my team was to identify and arrest people who were spying on the U. S. military and the West German military in what was then West Germany.)

The five men I met that day worked with me for the next 16 years and became my five “brothers” - closer than the one biological brother I have. There were two other Americans – Platt and John and three GermanBundeskriminalamt agents (the Bundeskriminalamt or BKA being the West German equivalent of the U.S. FBI) - Kurt, Dieter and Johann. Though I am sure it wasn’t planned that way, each had certain skills that set them apart from the others.

Platt (“The Cunning Linguist”) was a genius at languages. According to various tests given him at the Defense Language Institute in Monterrey, CA, Platt was considered fluent in 16 different languages in addition to his native English. Platt and I knew each other from our Vietnam service. Platt, however, had some deficiencies as well. He had terrible eyesight, was very absent-minded and was such a bad shot that we tried never to take him into the field unless it was absolutely necessary.

John was a cracks-man. There weren’t very many locks, safes, etc. that he couldn’t open, given time. His dad was a locksmith and John used to help out around his father’s store.

Dieter was the kind of guy who could take down the average wooden door with one “hit” from his shoulder. He was a gym rat and a weight lifter and had a slight resemblance to Arnold Schwartzenegger but spoke much better English.

Johann could have easily been a Grand Prix race car driver. There would be many times in the days to come where his skills behind the wheel helped the team immensely. Besides his general driving skills, he was also amazing in his ability to tail someone in another vehicle without arousing their suspicions, even in downtown traffic.

Kurt and I were the two generalists. We always seemed to be second (or third) best at everything but we had a wide range of skills. I was a better pistol shot, he was a better rifleman, I was a slightly better interrogator and he was a little bit better than I in finding the one thing in a document or a surveillance report that gave us the needed answer. (By the time Kurt retired, he had made it up the ladder all the way to Deputy Director of the BKA.)

All 6 of us spoke English and German equally well, though Kurt had an English accent when he spoke English, having spent many summers while he was growing up visiting relatives in Lincolnshire, England and I had acquired a Bavarian accent from my German teachers in high school in Philadelphia and my acting mentor, Kurt Kasznar, who was originally from Austria.

As I have written, over the next 16 years we 6 men became extremely close. We had some successes, survived some hair-raising moments together, socialized together, our wives and kids became friends with the other 5 guys’ wives and kids (I am the godfather to two of Dieter’s children).

Within the limits of my memory and of what I know to be still be classified and what is no longer classified, at the request of a dear friend who is also a Quora contributor, I’ll try to tell about a few of our “adventures” in the world of Cold War espionage and counter-espionage, terrorism and anti-terrorism in future blog entries.

As they used to say in the movie serials/cliffhangers –

TO BE CONTINUED… 

"No Dogs Or Actors Allowed"

It may be difficult for some to understand today, but there was a time in the United States when some people looked upon entertainers as being one step lower than prostitutes.

In 1963, when I was 13 years old, I was with my maternal grandmother buying groceries at a local store and a woman came up to me, wanting to complement me on a guest appearance I had made on a local TV show a week before. My grandmother angrily said to her, “There’s some lower class boy who unfortunately looks like my grandson appearing on television. No one in our family would lower themselves to be in show business”.  What could I, a 13 year old kid, do then but say nothing? Contradict my own grandmother in public?

Ironically, the money we were using to buy the groceries was from my paycheck for being in “Oliver!” on Broadway at that time (under yet another stage name).

My salary from the 7 Broadway shows I was in between 1960 and 1969, the nightclub and supper club gigs and the local TV work I did in Philadelphia during that same time period paid the mortgage, put food on the table and enabled my older brother and my father to go to college (and my father to seminary). But due to my grandmother's rigid thinking and her constant "What will people think?" attitude, I had to pretend when I was home or at school or hanging out in the neighborhood that I wasn't an entertainer and whenever I was in a stage show or on TV or singing in a nightclub or supper club, I had to use a different stage name so people wouldn't make the connection and "bring shame on my family".

A Loss That Still Brings Me Pain

When I was growing up, I was told that my maternal grandfather, Courtland Hamer, and my Great Aunt, Ruth Hamer Mayall, had a brother, Russell Hamer, who died in the Spanish flu pandemic that hit the United States in 1918. My grandfather died before I was born and my great aunt and I were very close until her death in 1984. When we were cleaning her house after her death, I stumbled upon a collection of letters from her correspondence with her brother Russell and found that he had not died as I had been told. Instead, he had become an actor and to avoid the “shame” on the family of his being an actor, the family had declared him “dead” and had even put a fake death notice in the Philadelphia, PA newspapers.

After doing a lot of digging, I was able to learn that my great uncle had a grandson, Russell Craig Hamer, who became known to film and television watchers as “Rusty” Hamer. Rusty was best known for playing Danny Thomas’ son on “Make Room For Daddy”, “The Danny Thomas Show” and “Make Room For Granddaddy”. 

(This also explained, in some way, why my maternal grandmother would not allow my brother and I to watch “Make Room For Daddy” when we were children – and why she demanded that every acting job I did from 1960 to 1969, I had to do under different stage names, still believing that if it were known that I was an actor, it would somehow bring “shame” on our family.)

I never was able to connect with him, except for a few letters, because I was serving in the U.S. Army in Europe during the next 6 years. 

With no skills or training other than being an actor, and few roles because most fans would not accept him as anything other than Danny Thomas’ TV “son”, Rusty committed suicide on January 18, 1990. 

His suicide raised awareness of the potential mental fragility of child performers and inspired fellow former child actor Paul Peterson II, formerly of ABC's The Donna Reed Show, to establish the support group A Minor Consideration. The group seeks to improve working conditions for young actors and assists former child entertainers in making the transition from past fame to adult life.

Rusty - I so wish I had really gotten the chance to know you all the years we were growing up. You were only a year older than my brother and only 4 years older than me. We could have been friends.

http://aminorconsideration.org/

The Story Of An Entertainer's Place In Life?

Originally published September 9, 2015:

The usual line of souls was waiting to enter Heaven.

The first soul was asked by the angel, “What did you do on Earth?”

“I was a lawyer.”

“Hmm - a lawyer, eh. I don’t know.” The angel examined the great book of records and said, “Well, you were a public defender and often performed legal services at no cost to the poor. You may enter Heaven.”

There was a blast of trumpets, the Pearly Gates opened and the lawyer entered Heaven.

The next soul was asked by the angel, “What did you do on Earth?”

“I was a Congressman.”

“Hmm - a Congressman, eh. I don’t know.” The angel examined the great book of records and said, “Well, you were a supporter of the rights of women and gays. You voted in favor of many laws on civil rights. You may enter Heaven.”

There was a blast of trumpets, the Pearly Gates opened and the Congressman entered Heaven.

The next soul was asked by the angel, “What did you do on Earth?”

“I was a composer of both religious and popular music. I received many awards for my music and my recordings. I was given the Kennedy Center Honors and the Medal of Freedom. My name is Edward Kennedy Ellington, but most people called me ‘Duke’ Ellington.”

“A musician, eh? The service entrance through the kitchen is over there. Once you get inside, remember – you can’t use any of the facilities and don’t speak to any of the angels in Heaven unless you’re asked to perform for them. When you’re done performing - go back to your room in the servant’s quarters.”

"Wake up - and sing something!"

Originally published September 9, 2015:

I don’t remember where I saw it first, but someone once wrote, “Every joke has a kernel of truth in it, or we wouldn’t tell it”.
 
The Joke: 

One summer evening, a woman was walking through an area of New Orleans with many clubs. Because it was a hot night, many of the places had doors and windows open and you could hear the music as you walked down the street. 

As she passed one particular club, she heard a man singing with the band. His voice was beautiful - and even a bit sexually stimulating. She went inside, and there on the bandstand singing was the ugliest man she had ever seen. His voice was so compelling, so warm and sexy, however, that she decided to stay, getting a seat facing away from the band so that she could hear him sing but wouldn’t have to look at him. She had drink after drink, listening to him sing until she passed out. 

She woke up hours later, to find herself in a bed, lying next to the ugly male singer from the club who was asleep and slightly snoring. On the table next to the bed was a marriage license with her name and his on it. What was she to do? She thought a minute, shook him on the shoulder and said, “Wake up, creep – and sing something!”
 
Some days I feel like the male singer in the joke.

"What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up, Kid?"

When I was very young, 8 years old to be exact, my mother and I would spend part of the week in New York City where I was doing 4 performances each week in “The Sound Of Music” and the rest of the week in our home in Philadelphia, PA. It was a slightly weird and crazy time but I loved every minute. The weekly trip to New York City saved me from the Philadelphia streets.

As I spent more and more time around actors and musicians, I decided that my answer to the infamous question, “What do you want to be when you grow up, kid?” was that I was going to become the next multi-talent who would rule the world of entertainment. I would be an actor, a director, a playwright, and a songwriter, both music and lyrics.

My next acting job came a year later when I was cast in “Sail Away”, a musical starring Elaine Stritch. By that time I was 9 years old and a “seasoned Broadway veteran” (Ha-Ha!). The great Noel Coward not only wrote the script, he wrote the words and the music to all the songs and he directed it. Luckily for me, when I first met Mr. Coward, I was so young and knew so little about theater that I really had no idea who he was, or I would have been scared to death at my audition..

We rehearsed in New York City for some weeks and then we took the show on the road. As our time in rehearsal and on the road progressed, the show changed, Elaine’s role got bigger and more important, new songs were added, old songs removed, dialogue changed - it was exhilarating and exciting and a little frightening to be a part of a brand new show.

Everybody loved my mother – mainly because she didn’t have one ounce of “stage mother” in her. She got me there on time, she helped me learn the few spoken lines I had and she never once complained that her son wasn’t getting enough limelight. She would sit quietly in the back of the rehearsal room or in the back of the theater knitting (her favorite pastime). The day she gave Mr. Coward the sweater she had been knitting for him (a total surprise for him), she became one of Noel’s favorite people and I did as well, by extension. (In later years, when I might accidentally run into him, his first words to me were almost always, “How is your lovely mother, dear boy?”)

I decided that Noel Coward, being an actor and a director and a playwright and a songwriter, would be the perfect person to help me achieve my dream. He gave me one of the songs he had written which had been replaced in the show while we were in Boston and told me to write a new lyric for it. I agonized over every word and every comma for two days and then gave it to him. He read what I had written and then sat down at the piano and played the song, singing it softly with my new lyrics.

When he had finished, Noel looked at me and said, very seriously in a man-to-man voice (and not a man-to-9-year-old-boy voice), “Dear boy, I think you better stick to acting and singing. You do them both well and I believe you will get better and better – but I am afraid you just weren’t there when the writing muse was handed out”. Tough words for a 9 year old to hear, but once the initial sting wore off, I realized he was right.

To this day, over 55 years later, I still wish I had been there “when the writing muse was handed out”. And I still envy people who write books or plays or lyrics or music. But I took Noel’s advice to heart and focused not on being the creator but on being the performer and interpreter of what others have written. And, at the risk of sounding a bit conceited, after all these years I think I’m finally getting pretty good at it.

Thank you, Noel -  you probably saved the ears of the world a lot of pain when you talked me out of writing songs...

Time heals damn slowly

Originally published on August 31, 2015:

They say that time heals but - next Thursday, September 3rd, 2015, will be 8 months to the day that my fiancee was killed. For some reason the past few days I find little things destroy me - a song, a picture, even the smell of certain foods cooking - and I find myself crying uncontrollably.

There have only been two human beings in my 64 years of life who have loved me unconditionally - my Mom and Cely.

Right now the years ahead look pretty barren (and based on family statistics and records I have quite a few barren years left ahead of me). My music keeps me going - but when the songs are done, everyone goes home to their spouse or their girlfriend or their boyfriend - and I go home to a cat and my housemate.

I am happy that so many people I know have life partners and families and career successes - but I confess that my happiness for them is tinged with traces of envy and a little jealousy.